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The Mama Daughter Dynamic

One: I have always had hair angst. If it
is long, I want it short. If it is short, I can’t wait for it to grow out. And,
I have always wanted bangs. That thick fringe that sets off your eyes or the
side swept bangs that frame your face.

The second, and one that is most
shocking, is I have always typically done the complete opposite of what my Mama
has wanted me to do. Pretty much every big decision – from marrying the first
husband to not going to law school– has been the polar opposite of what she has
wanted and demanded of me.

Both – the bangs and the Mama – have
given me fits throughout my life.

And the horror of both is that Mama has
always tried to dictate what she thinks I should do with my hair.

There was nothing quite like going to
the salon as a teenage girl, with dreams of how you wanted your hair only to
have your mother standing behind the chair telling the stylist, “Just give her
a perm. And she’s growing out her bangs, so don’t cut them again.”

“I don’t know why I can’t do what I want
to my hair,” I would protest.

“Because I know better,” she said.

In a moment of desperation, I once cut
my own bangs the night before going to a school competition at the state level.

I think I placed out of pity.

“Why did you do that to your hair?” she
asked me.
“You wouldn’t let me get bangs. I needed bangs!”

“You didn’t need that!”

I had cut them so short and unevenly,
they were a jagged line about an inch below my hairline and would curl up like
corkscrew pasta. It was a wretched mess and there was no way to fix it.

Granny took me to get a pair of shoes.

“Shoes?” I asked. I never turned down
shoes but thought it was an odd outing.

“There’s nothing we can do with your
hair, but you may as well have some cute shoes as a consolation prize.”

Of course, this probably set me up with
the belief that when all goes wrong, buy shoes.

Mama just used this as a multi-purpose
example of what goes wrong when I don’t listen to her.

She never lets me live down anything,
either, so for the longest anytime I didn’t heed her warnings, she would remind
me: “Don’t let this be another cutting your own bangs incident.”

Mama has been quite outspoken and vocal
about all my mistakes.

“I don’t know why you married your first
husband,” she said one day. “I never could stand him.”
“Maybe if you had, I wouldn’t have,” I replied dryly.

Granny snorted at this comment. In all
of her infinite wisdom, Granny never uttered one bad word about my first
husband while we were dating or married. She waited until the divorce was final
before she expressed her utter disdain of him.

“Well, Jean, you knew how we felt about
her daddy, and you married him anyway. Reckon that’s the only thing the old gal
got that was like you,” Granny stated.

Mama reminded me every chance she got
about what a mistake I had made by marrying him. She recited every time she had
warned me and had been right.

I did like I always had and tuned her
out.

“You aren’t listening because you know I
am right!” she would say.

She urged me to go to law school and I
didn’t.

Every time I have complained about my
career – or lack thereof – her immediate response has been: “Well, if you had
gone on to law school like I told you, you would have had a better career. But
you don’t listen to me. Even when I am telling you something that will help
you.”

“Where’s the fun in that?” I asked. “You
would have absolutely nothing to hold over my head.”

Granny once told me to not pay her any
attention.

“She ain’t never listened to me so I
don’t know why she expects you to listen to her,” she said. “Bobby listens to
me; Cole will listen to you. That’s what a son does. But a daughter is made to
not listen to her mother.”

Maybe she was right.

I was needing a change recently, tired
of my chin length bangs and sent Mama a photo I found of the hair I wanted with
soft, long bangs.

“Cute!”
she texted back.

I called her the day of the appointment.
“What do you think about that cut I sent you?”

“I thought it was precious! You would
look so pretty with your hair cut like that!”

“Really?” Did she see something
different than the one I had sent?

“Absolutely.”

“You saw the photo of Emma Stone, right?
With bangs?”

“I don’t know who Emma Stone is, but I
saw the girl with the red hair and bangs and loved it. Are you getting your
hair that color, too, or just the bangs?”

“Just the bangs.” What was going on? She
always fussed about me coloring my hair.

“Well, it will look good on you. I can’t
wait to see it.”

“So, you think I should get bangs?”

“It’s your hair. You should get what you
want, and I think that will be adorable. So, if you want it, get it!”

I walked into the salon in shock. Had we
finally, after 46 years of existence, turned a corner?